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All I can say is, thank god I didn't watch the NBC broadcast of the closing ceremonies! They apparently cut short their prime time broadcast of the closing ceremonies to show a preview of their new sitcom. Even worse, the part they cut short was the set from legendary rock band The Who, which announcer Bob Costas had been promising all night long. This is just baffling. The whole broadcast took place many hours after the event actually wrapped. The people at NBC had hours to configure, edit and time their broadcast. If they wanted to, they could've easily cut more of the preceding musical acts out to show The Who, the headliner of the whole thing. Instead, nope, they kept in Russell Brand's awful Beatles cover and Fatboy Slim's pointless DJ set rather than show The Who. Best of all, they declined to tell Bob Costas.

If you recall, NBC did the same thing to the Vancouver Olympics closing ceremony, cutting it short to show a preview of Jerry Seinfeld's TV show The Marriage Ref. Yeah, The Marriage Ref. Boy, that sure worked out! There was some hope that after Dick Ebersol got fired from NBC afterwards, this sort of ridiculousness would stop. But nope, NBC is worse than ever.

I don't know who's responsible, but I'm just glad I didn't give up and turn the channel, because at about midnight, they showed the rest of it. I was also kind of bummed that instead of showing the final footage to the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth, they used generic movie music that they always use for TV film ads before the film's soundtrack has been released. Peeve.

And to interrupt the OLYMPICS for an obvious classic of deathless dramaturgy like Animal Hospital....Be still, my heart.